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Dragon Strike is better. It allows you to continually poke the enemy champ's in your lane where as your flag's initial hit damage is quite a bit less, costs more mana per use, has a much longer cd, and then requires you to follow it up with auto attacks to fully make use of the buffs.

E is actually the better for zoning and harassment--Q is better for safely last hitting.

while Q will get a few extra points of damage per hit, and will be able to hit more often, once j4 uses Q the enemy knows the only thing he has left to retaliate with is his auto-attacks. if j4 throws the flag out, the enemy can't stick around to counter-harass or engage or else they risk being knocked up.

also, if you're constantly harassing with E, the enemy will be less certain of when you'll attempted to go in for the Q and follow-up. it's just a more frightening harass even though the flag itself does less damage than the spear.

getting into what's better for a lane partner also favors E over Q, at least for the early levels. the flag is just more solid overall.

Leveling E doesn't decrease CD. Q damage goes up significantly and if anything the reduced CD coupled with bigger numbers you get on Q make an opponent more weary of harass.

So with a skill that is overall weaker, doesn't work with the armour pen you'll most likely have on Jarvan, and doesn't ever come up any more frequently, is supposed to make them more afraid as you level it?

You only need one point in the E to maximize primary threat factor: You coming in for a knockup that debuffs them and puts you into range to smack them for 8% of their HP.

The initial bonus from E is enough. It doesn't scale all that significantly per level afterwards.

And nobody would actually consider leveling E first for harassment.
It has a static cooldown.
It does magic damage.
Its very easily dodged.

But even aside from that, no good Jarvan would want to land E right on in the first place. A good Jarvan would usually overshoot the flag so he could combo into it with his Q and land a knockup.
Thats why people level the flag LAST. Other than taking down towers more quickly, the bonuses it offers to you and your team is not all that significant. Having a Dragon Strike with a lower cooldown and a much stronger shield are much more beneficial.

After the nerf, this should be a no-brainer. First, the Standard gives pathetic damage increases. But now that each rank only adds 3% IAS/Armor instead of the previous 4%, then it makes no sense to waste any early skill-ups getting it above rank 1 which gives the 10% buff, and has the same CD. The Strike will hit much much harder, and is much easier and more rewarding to land.

E is actually the better for zoning and harassment--Q is better for safely last hitting.

while Q will get a few extra points of damage per hit, and will be able to hit more often, once j4 uses Q the enemy knows the only thing he has left to retaliate with is his auto-attacks. if j4 throws the flag out, the enemy can't stick around to counter-harass or engage or else they risk being knocked up.

also, if you're constantly harassing with E, the enemy will be less certain of when you'll attempt to go in for the Q and follow-up. it's just a more frightening harass even though the flag itself does less damage than the spear.

getting into what's better for a lane partner also favors E over Q, at least for the early levels. the flag is just more solid overall.

Completely incorrect. As a previous poster said, static cooldown, easier to dodge, magic damage, and much smaller area of affect in regards to the damage. Enemies would have to be standing literally on top of one another for the flag to hit more than one person. It is quite easy to hit two or more enemies with the spear.